The hidden world of geologic data dictionary descriptions

Woke up to the spitting of rain that stopped just as I put the rainfly on.  Love to hear the roosters and horses anxious to get out of their stalls.

More geologic mapping today with the GPS.  Back into the mosquito ridden streams.  Our best method of seeing different alluvium formations is in the stream cuts and the slumps created by cow grazing.  We bring the odd hammer that keeps disappearing which makes getting to fresh formation a bit harder.  Our geo team is working with a less efficient means of GPS collection.  We can’t use our data dictionary so descriptions have to be written in my notebook and then typed into the ArcGIS attribute tables.  I am starting to formulate an idea that the geologic map that we are using is in need of revisitation (which we are doing now), and that the new alluvium is between the terrace tops of the old formations.  It just makes sense but needs to be further examined.

Thomas and I further explored the area till our sweaty overheated minds decided to climb up to where the volcanic rock outcrop was.  Thomas and I had different ideas, he decided to bushwack to some insane spot on a ledge up high and I tried to follow a ridge to look for more archy features.  Fail on my part and big fail on Thomas’s part.  I made it to my goal and took some great pictures but there were no obvious features.  Thomas ended up army crawling through the bush to be able to get to his destination and quitting less than halfway to his goal.  The worst part is that he had to come back down.  On the way down he found a beautiful snail shell.   Suddenly he was screaming bloody murder and telling me to “get it out, get it out!!”  I was told to put my hand in his liquid soaked pocket, with a little disclaimer to not be freaked out.  Several things went through my mind at once; acid, stinging spider, etc, I reached in the pocket to be met by a slimy, sharp, sandpapery feel that filled my whole hand.  I freaked out and would not take it out.  Come to find out the huge shell still had a snail and he sat on it.

This evening was spent learning to download the data to arcMap to be able to see where we have been and to collect data points.  The geo situation is a different situation, where we have a few more odd steps to do to be able to visualize our work.  Sometimes it is good to have something different or out of the ordinary to do, but I am so slow in learning in this fast paced environment that I feel sorry for the people that have to deal with me.  But I so appreciate the experience.

Tomorrow we mix things up a bit.  I will most likely be in the geo group trying to help the newer member of our group to understand what we are trying to get a grasp on.  This evening I will make an excel spreadsheet to enable attribute selection that would normally be easy with the Trimbles.  The spreadsheet will help make things go quicker for data explanation of the geology seen without having to write lengthy descriptions.

Sleepy…